ANS is committed to advancing, fostering, and promoting the development and application of nuclear sciences and technologies to benefit society.
Explore the many uses for nuclear science and its impact on energy, the environment, healthcare, food, and more.
Explore membership for yourself or for your organization.
Conference Spotlight
Nuclear Energy Conference & Expo (NECX)
September 8–11, 2025
Atlanta, GA|Atlanta Marriott Marquis
Standards Program
The Standards Committee is responsible for the development and maintenance of voluntary consensus standards that address the design, analysis, and operation of components, systems, and facilities related to the application of nuclear science and technology. Find out What’s New, check out the Standards Store, or Get Involved today!
Latest Magazine Issues
Jul 2025
Jan 2025
Latest Journal Issues
Nuclear Science and Engineering
September 2025
Nuclear Technology
August 2025
Fusion Science and Technology
Latest News
The Frisch-Peierls memorandum: A seminal document of nuclear history
The Manhattan Project is usually considered to have been initiated with Albert Einstein’s letter to President Franklin Roosevelt in October 1939. However, a lesser-known document that was just as impactful on wartime nuclear history was the so-called Frisch-Peierls memorandum. Prepared by two refugee physicists at the University of Birmingham in Britain in early 1940, this manuscript was the first technical description of nuclear weapons and their military, strategic, and ethical implications to reach high-level government officials on either side of the Atlantic. The memorandum triggered the initiation of the British wartime nuclear program, which later merged with the Manhattan Engineer District.
D. J. Euh, B. G. Huh, B. J. Yun, C.-H. Song, I. G. Kim
Nuclear Technology | Volume 164 | Number 3 | December 2008 | Pages 368-384
Technical Paper | Thermal Hydraulics | doi.org/10.13182/NT164-368
Articles are hosted by Taylor and Francis Online.
The reflood rate in a core is an important parameter for core cooling during a large-break loss-of-coolant-accident (LBLOCA) reflood period, and it strongly depends on the thermal-hydraulic conditions in the downcomer. During this period, downcomer boiling has an important influence on the transient behavior of a postulated LBLOCA because it can degrade the hydraulic head in a downcomer and consequently affect the reflood flow rate for core cooling. Although it is recognized that downcomer boiling is critical to correctly predict the reflood phenomena of an LBLOCA transient, especially for a direct vessel injection adapted system like the advanced power reactor APR1400, the amount of experimental data and code assessment in this area is relatively limited. To improve the state of knowledge relative to downcomer boiling, a test program at the Downcomer Boiling (DOBO) facility is progressing for the reflood phase of a postulated LBLOCA. The DOBO facility was designed to meet a full scale for the height and gap of a reactor downcomer. The DOBO test revealed a strong multidimensional boiling behavior, which induces the need for performance evaluation of the best-estimate codes that are used to analyze a nuclear reactor's thermal-hydraulic safety, since they have mostly been used for one-dimensional system behavior. In this study, RELAP, MARS, and TRACE are evaluated by using measured two-phase-flow data. Based on the assessments, the modeling capability and weak points of the safety analysis codes are addressed for multidimensional downcomer boiling phenomena. Two models for a downcomer are considered to assess the codes for the DOBO tests, which are also applied to a plant analysis.
